How can we help?

The Sabre Tooth Panda method is entirely client lead. Hard Not Complicated is a system, a method for thinking and working that helps you build a strong relationship with creativity but exactly what you do with it is entirely up to you. Here we offer some examples of how getting cosy with creativity could help you handle some typical business challenges.

Work better everyday

Deal with stress

Handle stress

Deal with adversity

Build stronger teams

Be a more diverse company

Enjoy what you do

Have better workplace relationships

Manage change

Extra, not ordinary: working better every day

Some people think of creativity as something that happens from time to time in special rooms with post-it notes and whiteboards. That’s not how Sabre Tooth Panda sees it. In fact, one of our core principals is that Creativity Happens Now.

When the projector fails and you need a new way to give your presentation, that happens now. When your client throws you changes their requirements and needs a response, that happens now. When you’re down a team member and the job still needs to get done, that happens now.

How you relate to creativity, your habits and instincts when things don’t go as planned, that’s what will determine if you respond to unexpected challenges with creativity and style, or if you screw up, fall back on old, half baked ideas or freeze.

Yes, creativity can happen in planned, focused workshops. It can happen on executive retreats and in carefree moments inspiration. But most of the time when we’re called on to solve problems without a script, without a guide, that happens now. Sabre Tooth Panda’s approach means that when creativity calls, you’ll be ready.

You'll go grey quick enough without it: manage stress

Stress is a problem in every workplace. The approach taken by Sabre Tooth Panda, while not directly related to stress management, can help you to manage stress, cope with pressure and remain calm because our approach is centred on mindfulness.

The Hard Not Complicated Method is simple; begin by practicing awareness. Through awareness gain insight. Follow insight with sustained, real world based practice, and then integrate new knowledge into the everyday. At each stage awareness, mindfulness, is the fundamental element.

Being more mindful can help elevate welcome feelings, manage unwelcome ones and take a proactive approach to how we respond to triggers such as stressful situations. Not only that, but having a strong relationship with creativity supercharges your problem solving skills so whatever is causing the stress can be more powerfully dealt with.

Don't stop me now: dealing with adversity

Adversity is something we all have to deal with in work and in life. But to someone with a strong relationship with creativity, adversity is just information to work with, just a constraint to innovate within.

For instance, some face prejudice in the workplace. Women may find they struggle in a male dominated workplace, young people may feel ignored and the old may feel sidelined. Ethnic minorities, gay, transgender; all face challenges that may be unique to people in their situation.

But unique challenges are exactly what creativity is made for. Sabre Tooth Panda workshops and the Hard Not Complicated Method of self directed learning help people to think with agility, see challenges as opportunities and, where possible, turn their differences into unique strengths rather than allowing others to use their differences against them.

Identity prejudice is always wrong, but we recognise that it is a part of life for many people and condemning it just isn’t enough. While the world works slowly towards a more enlightened society, one that respects difference, Sabre Tooth Panda can help you make the best of the world as it is today.

Make your team work, make your dream work: work better as a team

Teams are the basic unit of innovation. The story of the loan genius working away in obscurity, when examined, always reveals relationships without which nothing good could be achieved. But many of us feel stifled in our teams at work, unable to express ourselves. Sabre Tooth Panda can help.

Creativity thrives in an environment where risk taking is encouraged, blame is discouraged and a growth mindset prevails. Creative leaders care less about what you’ve done and more about what you could do next.

The Hard Not Complicated Method can help teams understand the norms, patterns and habits that might underpin a lack of creativity and, in doing so, can help them learn to be better team players by flocking together without becoming sheep.

This is the central conflict. Great creative teams respect and support one another without the weight of the collective norm crushing the individuals. Since creativity is both a way to relate to the world and a way to relate to our own live, Sabre Tooth Panda can help you to build a culture of robust individualism while maintaining a strong sense of collective endeavour.

It takes all sorts: be a more diverse company

Diversity can be seen in two distinct ways; it’s either a hassle or an opportunity. Sabre Tooth Panda believes that which side of that line you fall on depends heavily on your relationship with creativity.

Let’s be honest, diversity comes with costs. It requires you to consider different needs, be aware of cultural differences and overcome ways in which the ethics, norms, and values of different people don’t always align. A simple conversation between two people who have a lot in common can be far more complicated when the group contains different, perhaps conflicting ideas and life experiences.

But we also know that diversity offers amazing opportunities. We don’t just desire difference for the sake of difference or to fill quotas and tick boxes. We want diversity because a wider set of ideas, more eclectic experiences and contrasting points of view help us solve problems, find opportunities and be better at what we do. That is, of course, if you have a culture that can take advantage of it.

A strong relationship with creativity gives you the ability to see opportunity where others only see challenge. It also lets you see past superficial differences to find what unites people. By enhancing curiosity and building confidence in our ability to deal with the unexpected, a strong relationship with creativity can make building a diverse workplace easier and more successful.

Mix business and pleasure: enjoying what you do

Studies show that all you really need to be happy in work are three things:

1. Autonomy2. Mastery3. Purpose

At Sabre Tooth Panda we think having a strong relationship with creativity helps to achieve all three.

Autonomy depends on the ability to self direct. As we move away from command and control we rely on all of those around us to make more decisions and take more responsibility. This is an essential creative skill. If you can see more possible paths, you can find better solutions without the need for outside direction.

Mastery requires us to see what is wrong and embrace change. This is the habit of a growth mindset, intrinsic to a strong relationship with creativity. Realising that you can change, that you can improve and that results are driven by deliberate choices, not just innate talent, makes the idea of mastery less daunting and more approachable.

Being able to see and understand purpose is an act of creativity in itself. Life doesn’t present us with meaning. Seeing it is a creative act. By developing a strong relationship with creativity you can more easily find purpose in your work by seeing not only what your work is but what it means, something that remains far more constant over time as the demands of your role shift.

Love thy neighbour: having stronger relationships

Work colleagues, for many of us are more like family than friends. That is to say, we don’t get to choose them. And, like family, we’re tied together by something bigger than ourselves. So it’s important that even when we don’t get along, we find a way to work together that’s productive. That’s where a strong relationship with creativity can help.

When we develop the habit of creative thinking we come to see that there are few if any absolutes. We work on recognising the difference between fact and opinion (hint: it’s almost always the latter) and we realise that if we don’t like something it’s often possible to reframe it and change how relate to it, even if we can’t change the object itself.

Sabre Tooth Panda coaches clients to do this in all things, but when it comes to interpersonal relationships it can be profoundly powerful. When people develop a mutual dislike, or even when it’s one sided, at the heart of it is often absolute thinking. We see statements like “John is always picking on me” or “Sarah never contributes”. This fixed thinking, these absolute phrases, they point to a mind that’s stuck in one frame of reference. Having a strong relationship with creativity makes it far harder to get stuck in these conceptual cul-de-sacs and far easier to find a way out if you do.

We don’t get to decide what we get in life, but we do get to decide what we do with what we get; and that includes other people. That’s where having a strong relationship with creativity comes in. That’s where we come in.

Put a dollar in the change machine: handling change

At Sabre Tooth Panda we believe that creativity is about power. If you have a strong relationship with creativity then you can relate to your world from a position of power, if not, you can begin to see the world around you as something beyond your control and, thus, any changes are to be feared.

When faced with changes it is natural to be a little frightened. The unknown can bring about dangers for which you aren’t prepared. But what if change itself is what you’re prepared for?

That’s what creativity is, being ready to respond to change, without a script, without someone to show you the way. After all, life is full of new situations and the only way to respond to them is to be creative.

Having a strong relationship with creativity means, along with the fear of the unknown you can feel the excitement of the possible. Helping your employees to feel this way can make change not only easier to cope with but more successful too.